Benny Peiser’s CCNet has another fascinating run-down today of emissions-limit misgivings in the EU.

Europe’s ambitious plan to tackle climate change was wilting under pressure Thursday with EU leaders set to tailor the final package to take account of national concerns about its economic impact. Italy and Poland brandished the threat of a veto if their reservations were not taken into account, while Germany, Europe’s largest economy, also voiced concerns over the environmental plans. — AFP, 16 October 2008Eight eastern and central European countries have challenged the EU’s climate change package, which France wants to get adopted before next year. The eight EU members want CO2 emission targets revised in light of “serious economic and financial uncertainties”.
— BBC News, 15 October 2008
I have announced my intention to exercise my veto. Our businesses are in absolutely no position at the moment to absorb the costs of the regulations that have been proposed. We do not think that now is the time to be playing the role of Don Quixote.
— Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, 15 October 2008
Poland threatened on Wednesday to veto a December deadline for adopting ambitious European Union legislation to fight climate change unless changes are made to shield the coal-based Polish economy from the impact.
— Reuters, 15 October 2008
We have to find a solution before January. There are points of flexibility.
— French President Nicolas Sarkozy, 15 October 2008
If industry is in a difficult pass, most sensible governments will be reluctant to impose new costs on them in the form of carbon-emissions caps.
— Yvo de Boer, UNFCCC, 16 October 2008
So, watch this space, as Germany, The Netherlands, Poland, and lots of other EU states swiftly grasp political reality, namely that their voters — just like those of Canada — prefer jobs and prosperity to carbon claptrap, ‘Green’ taxes, and the imposition of punishing costs. Even Angela Merkel, the Chancellor of Germany, was recently reported as admitting that she “could not support the destruction of German jobs through an ill-advised climate policy.”
— Philip Stott, 15 October 2008